Materials

Stone and Stucco

Stone can be categorized into three groups: gemstones, semi-precious stones, and coarser varieties.

Gemstones cut in different ways were used to embellish jewelry and weapons. Semi-precious stones such as rock crystal, jade, carnelian, and jasper were used to make small, finely worked luxury items, from jugs to dagger hilts, but also for seals. In addition, they were employed as an inlay material for pietra dura work.

Marble, alabaster, and sandstone are the varieties of stone that were most often utilized for architectural decorations, from capitals and wall reliefs to jalis and inscription panels. They were also used for other sculptural purposes, for example tombstones and fountains.

Stucco is an artificial material that consists of lime, marble dust, and gypsum. It was used extensively for wall decorations in both low and high relief in Iraq and Iran during the 8th and 9th century. The stucco technique perhaps reached its culmination in Nasrid Spain.

Capital, alabaster

All three capitals are indebted to the classical idiom of Antiquity, but reflect a further development of classical motifs and a new form of stylization that was characteristic of the Abbasids.

The capitals come from the area around the Syrian city of Nikephorion, which was conquered in 639 by Muslim forces and renamed Raqqa. The city experienced its greatest expansion under the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid when he made it the capital of the caliphate between 796 and 808 and built an enormous palace complex.

The cross on the latest capital (2/2001) shows that Islam was not the only religion that was tolerated in Raqqa, where churches, monasteries, and a bishopric were found as late as the 12th century. This capital is an example of the beveled style, where the move away from classical vegetal ornaments towards an abstract idiom was complete. It is difficult to determine here what the motif is and what forms the background. Although the completely new beveled style was developed under the Muslims in this period, the capital shows that it could also be used by followers of other religions in the region.